All through his 30 years of volunteering, Delimar has labored to construct a neighborhood for college kids. He based the College of Zagreb’s IEEE pupil department and later grew to become its chair. He went on to change into the department’s counselor and a member of the IEEE Croatia Part’s pupil actions committee. He has held quite a few IEEE management positions, and he served on the group’s Board of Administrators.

To interact extra pupil members and assist join pupil branches worldwide, he helped discovered the IEEEXtreme programming competitors, an annual, 24-hour digital contest during which groups compete to resolve pc coding issues.

He’s persevering with his mission because the 2025 president of the IEEE Basis, specializing in how the group’s charitable companion can assist college students and younger professionals prosper. Due to donations, the Basis is ready to fund scholarships, analysis and journey grants, and fellowships in partnership with IEEE societies and sections.

“Supporting IEEE packages is one thing that I’m very pleased with,” Delimar says. His targets as president, he says, are to extend consciousness of the Basis’s donor-supported packages and to steer extra individuals to assist its causes.

Supporting the subsequent era of engineers

After studying about IEEE from a number of of his professors who have been members, Delimar joined the group in 1994 throughout his second 12 months on the College of Zagreb. However with no pupil department on the college, there was no local people for pupil members. That 12 months he efficiently petitioned IEEE to determine the primary pupil department in Croatia. He served as its chair till he graduated together with his EE bachelor’s diploma in 1996.

By means of his involvement, he was concurrently “studying concerning the group and volunteering,” he says, including that it helped him higher perceive IEEE.

After graduating, he joined his alma mater as a educating assistant and researcher. He was later employed as a school member. He additionally performed analysis in energy engineering underneath his former professor, IEEE Senior Member Zdravko Hebel, who is understood for his work on the Croatian energy transmission community.

Delimar continued to volunteer, serving as chair of pupil actions for the IEEE Croatia Part till 2001. He additionally was the counselor for the scholar department.

“For me, IEEE Basis Day highlights how the IEEE Basis is greater than a charitable group—it’s the coronary heart of IEEE’s philanthropic efforts, the place generosity meets impression.”

Inside 4 years of his steerage, “the department was collaborating with different branches in not solely Area 8 [Europe, Middle East, and Africa] but in addition world wide,” he says. He determined it was time to unfold his wings, and he started volunteering for the area.

His first place was because the 2005–2006 vice chair of the IEEE Area 8 pupil actions committee, which is liable for pupil packages and advantages. On the time, IEEE was having bother retaining pupil members, he says.

“College students would graduate and never renew their membership,” he says. “There was additionally a difficulty with a number of the pupil branches, as they weren’t speaking properly or collaborating with one another.”

Delimar and IEEE Member Ricardo Varela, who was additionally on the committee, brainstormed the right way to higher have interaction college students and improve their participation. The 2 males wished to create an occasion that might enable college students internationally to take part on the identical time.

“It appeared like a really loopy concept,” he says, “as a result of it’s nighttime for one half of the world and daytime for the opposite half. You may’t even maintain a gathering on the identical time in every single place, not to mention an exercise.”

To beat the time-zone problem, Delimar and Varela devised a 24-hour competitors on programming, which was common amongst engineering college students on the time, Delimar says. Having the competition happen over 24 hours ensured all contributors have been on equal footing, he says.

Forty groups participated within the first IEEE Xtreme competitors, which was held in October 2006. It has since grown in reputation. Final 12 months almost 8,800 groups from 75 nations participated.

Though he’s not concerned within the contest anymore, Delimar says he’s pleased with its success.

In 2007 he grew to become vice chair of the IEEE Area 8 membership actions committee, which plans occasions for members. He was then elected because the 2010–2011 Area 8 director, and in 2013 he grew to become IEEE secretary. Each are Board-level positions.

“Being part of the IEEE Board of Administrators gave me the chance to find out about and serve on a number of fascinating committees that have been attempting to achieve explicit targets on the time, reminiscent of rising member engagement, enhancing coaching for brand new IEEE officers, and refining IEEE’s capability to rapidly adapt to the fast-changing surroundings,” Delimar says.

His time on the board impressed him to advocate for the formation of an advert hoc committee on European public coverage actions. He served as its chair, and in 2018 it grew to become a everlasting committee. Renamed the IEEE European Public Coverage Committee, it helps members of the European Union and European Free Commerce Affiliation in creating technology-related insurance policies. Delimar was its chair till 2020.

“IEEE has been in a position to present a united, unbiased voice of what’s good for know-how and what’s good for Europe,” he says. “It has been very properly acquired by the European Fee.”

In 2016 Pedro Ray, the 2010 IEEE president, requested Delimar to be a volunteer for the IEEE Basis, and he joined the board the subsequent 12 months.

“It’s been a really rewarding expertise,” he says.

Main the IEEE Basis

Delimar says that his most important aim as president is to extend consciousness amongst IEEE members of the Basis and its packages.

“The Basis helps greater than 250 funds and packages, and I need to strengthen its connections and partnerships throughout IEEE,” he says.

To perform that aim, the Basis has been elevating its visibility. In 2023 it celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with a reception in New York Metropolis. Different celebratory actions have been held that 12 months on the IEEE Imaginative and prescient, Innovation, and Challenges Summit and Honors Ceremony and the IEEE Energy & Power Society Normal Assembly.

Final 12 months the Basis established 16 February as IEEE Basis Day. The annual celebration marks the day in 1973 when the philanthropic group was launched. The inaugural occasion was designed to mirror the Basis’s imaginative and prescient of being the center of IEEE’s charitable giving. This 12 months’s celebration targeted on college students and younger professionals, highlighting beneficiaries of scholarships, grants, and fellowships and the impression they’ve had on the recipients.

“For me, IEEE Basis Day highlights how the IEEE Basis is greater than a charitable group—it’s the coronary heart of IEEE’s philanthropic efforts, the place generosity meets impression,” Delimar says. “Our donor-supported packages—like scholarships, journey grants, awards, analysis grants, and competitions—are greater than monetary assist for our college students and younger professionals; they’re catalysts for making goals come true.”

He says he desires to have interaction members who aren’t usually donors and thus develop the Basis’s attain.

“I need to allow individuals with completely different skilled journeys, financial backgrounds, cultures, and geography to have the ability to take part as donors for the IEEE Basis,” he says. “Each donor—whether or not they’re a pupil, younger skilled, or IEEE life member—is essential.”

Go to the IEEE Basis web site to find upcoming occasions, study methods to make a present, and see how the group’s charitable efforts are making an impression.